April 2, 2020 at 7:30 AM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale:  Several weeks ago management and staff began planning for altered office procedures due to the growing concern over COVID-19.  The following is a listing of some of the changes that have been made over the past several weeks:
- Office staff has been divided into two work groups, each working 3 days in the office and 3 days remotely from home.
- Staff members who can continue to work outside will do so when work is needed however they will not be permitted to enter any portion of the office.
- While working from home, staff will be available for phone and e-mail communications and understand all job related responsibilities remain.
- Management and staff are conducting daily conference calls at 10 am and 2 pm to maintain aggressive communication lines and insure all staff is up to date with ongoing District workloads.
- Sick leave will not be utilized while staff is working from home.
- The office doors have been locked and the general public is not allowed into the building without an appointment.
- If a walk-up customer needs to drop off paperwork, payment or any other correspondence, staff will go to their vehicle and take care of business outside of the office.
- All staff is being asked to follow generally accepted CDC recommendations when it comes to washing hands, disinfecting equipment and operating as safely as possible in our current working environment.
- Office cleaning crew is disinfecting all solid surfaces, light switches, door handles and public spaces during their regular cleaning and staff is doing the same at the end of the 3 day shifts.
- All staff will remain home and not come into the office if they have any of the variety of COVID-19 symptoms.
- Our NRD recreation areas remain open however we have closed down the Wanahoo playgrounds and all of our recreation site toilets.
- While we can never guarantee the absolute safety to all our employees, we believe these steps and any future steps, will help us achieve our greatest goal, that of protecting the health and well-being of our staff and the general public.

Rationale:  Adam Pieper representing Merle and Joan Mueller Trust is requesting a new well for the SE NE Section 30-18N-2E Colfax County..  Well G-026797 is in Section 29-18N-2E presently irrigates 300 acres.  The producer would like to take the hardship off of the 1 well and put in an additional well  The new well will irrigate approximately 90 acres in Section 30 and well G-026797 will irrigate the remaining 210 acres.  He is not increasing irrigated acres as these acres are already certified.  
Map is attached showing both sections.  Staff feels that taking the load off one well should make water management more efficient.  

Rationale:  The Coalition is requesting $10,000 dues from all it's members in the upcoming budget year.  As the first 5-year increment will be ending December 2021, the need to re-evaluate the depletion numbers might become necessary.  More discussion was planned for the April Coalition meeting, but now has been postpone. Staff would like the Committee/Board to consider putting this amount in next year's budget  

Rationale: 

For 2020 we have 189 renewals and 1 new permit applications for a current total of 190.  Inspections for 0 renewal permits have been completed.
 

Rationale: 

# new wells has been reviewed and approved for decommissioning since the last Committee meeting.

 

Rationale: 

# wells have been plugged, reviewed, and ready for cost share payment approval this month.

Well Owner	Type of Well	Cost Share Estimate	County
Wesch Trust's (5 wells)	Irrigation	$2,981.23	Dodge
Tim Foltz	Irrigation	$1,000	Platte
Jordan A. Jisa	Domestic	$508.92	Butler

 

Rationale:  After the Committee Meeting Daryl reviewed the agreements and corrected the dates from June 30, 2021 to June 30, 2022. 

In 2017 Lower Platte North signed an agreement  which continues dues of $30,000 until FY 2022.  The attachment "EMWRAfull_Interlocal_withAmend1to5" is attached with page 29 showing the most recent agreement.  

Item_1_NGCAgreements page 30  shows an agreement to continue funding the GeoCloud until June 30,2022 for the original amount of $3400 per year.  

Item_2_CoordinatorAgreements will extend this agreement with UNL to June 30, 2022.

The purpose of all of these is to put all of the contract approvals on the same date and year.  The year that all of these would come back to the Committee/Board is June 2022.  

Rationale:  Staff started measurements on March 23.

Rationale:  The LPNNRD received a NET Grant in 2018 for collecting and analyzing the nitrate movement in the Nitrate Management Areas.  The second year of the grant has $50,000 budgeted (as shown on page 13 of the attachment) for doing some detail geological interpretation and nitrate movement through the vadose zone.  The purpose of this part of the process is to assist in determining the most vulnerable areas, along with analyzing the most efficient best management practices for the right location.  Staff would like to start the process of requesting RFPs from firms to conduct this study.  Staff is looking for interactive computer results and not another map book.    

Rationale:  Attached is letter on the GMDA conference which is scheduled for June 9-12 in Colorado Springs.